High current, multi-filament photoconductive semiconductor switching

2011 
High current switching is the most critical challenge remaining for photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) applications in Pulsed Power. Many authors have described the advantageous properties of high gain PCSS such as, low optical trigger energy and inductance, sub-nanosecond risetime and jitter, optical isolation and control, pulsed or DC charging, and long device lifetime, provided the current per filament is limited to 20–30A for short pulse (10–20ns) applications [1,2]. Low energy optical triggering, long device lifetime, and current filaments are related features of high gain PCSS that make high current switching a challenge. Since the location and number of current filaments can be controlled with parallel “lines” of optical pulses across the insulating gap, the problem of high current, multi-filament PCSS switching is essentially the problem of producing a reliable, efficient, multi-line, optical delivery system [3].
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